


All The Things We Are (And Are Not)

by MightyGlowCloud



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: (No Need to Have Seen/Heard the Source Material, Angst, Broken Bones, Good Ending - I Swear, Inspired by Dear Evan Hansen, Letters, Slight Canon Divergence, Suicide Attempt, Suicide Notes, We Die Like Confused Mortal Beings)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 22:05:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19777381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MightyGlowCloud/pseuds/MightyGlowCloud
Summary: Carlos is both stuck in a desert otherworld, and also not.Cecil is writing letters to himself, and also not.So when Cecil says he's fine, well... We all know what that means.





	All The Things We Are (And Are Not)

**Author's Note:**

> At the time when I started writing this, I haven't seen/listened to Dear Evan Hansen... That will probably change by the time I end this, however, only time will tell...  
> And so, readers, I take you now to a poorly thought out idea that came to me while I was falling asleep partway through Ep56: Homecoming, and further solidified in Ep58: Monolith and is set (and diverges) around that time.

The day started like most other days. The sun's noisy rising waking me gently into the warm dawn of a new day. I sat, slowly sipping the coffee that was likely to also be breakfast and pulled out a notebook - that was not the dream journal I kept by the bed - and municipally approved writing utensil.

**Dear Cecil Palmer:**

**Today will be an amazing day, and here's why. Because today, all you have to do is just be yourself.** **But also be confident. That's important. And interesting. Find it in yourself to talk. To be approachable. But mostly be yourself. Be true to yourself.**

 **Don't worry about whether or not people see through your mask or if they see when your hands shake for no reason and when you can't make it stop no matter what you do, because they won't. They don't. No one in this town sees because you're a voice on the radio.  
****And after all, Night Vale is really a beautiful town.** **Its heat is warm and comforting as a blanket and on a day like today, like most of the days that have been, that’s sometimes what you need. Not only that, Night Vale is scientifically interesting. Or... it was.**

My thoughts trailed off, or rather they trailed into a sad territory, so I tucked the notebook away and got on with my day. I went to my job and reported on the happenings in Night Vale. I pet Khoshekh, having only recently returned to his home floating in the station bathroom. All in all, the day was just like all the other days. 

I came home. I ate whatever food I found in the fridge and washed it down with a bottle or two - or more - of some kind of alcohol before taking a walk through town, not wanting to be alone but not wanting to spend time with anyone but Carlos. Finishing the letter was the closest I could get.

**I took out the telescope you gave me a few months back and tried looking at the night sky without you. The moon is as beautiful as it ever was… Somehow it doesn’t feel the same without you here talking sweetly about the things I miss, gently showing me how much more there is to life when you only take the time to truly observe.**

**I miss you with all that I am, and all that I will be**  
**Sincerely, Me**

And when the lights above the Arby's mixed with the headlights of an oncoming car, I couldn't bring myself to really care. Not even when I was hit. Not even when I landed on the ground, arm twisted out at an odd angle.

Slightly when my phone's cracked screen displayed a call that I couldn't answer.

_Carlos._

* * *

"Hey."

"Hey, Abby. Thanks for, uh, picking me up."

"Yeah. No problem."

Silence sat heavy in the air between us in the car, neither one of us wanting to be the first to speak. I broke the silence when we started crossing to the wrong side of town.

"Abs... my house is back that way..."

"I know." Her hands tightened on the wheel.

"So... where are we going, then?"

"Home."

"Is- Are you okay?" We pulled up to her house, idling in the driveway as the midday sun reached its peak, neither one of us making a move to leave. She pinched the bridge of her nose.

"When I get a call at 2 in the morning because you've been hit by a car, I'm not okay. When I spend hours in a waiting room... when I have to make sure someone else is there for Janice- when you don't _talk to me_... Cecil, when your doctors can't give you the proper medication for a broken arm because you've been drinking, then I don't think things are 'okay'." She laughed derisively. "You want to ask me if I'm okay? Are you?!?"

"I'm fine. I just want to go home."

"Bullshit. Don't lie to me."

"I _will_ be fine. It's just a broken arm. It'll heal." Abby didn't seem convinced.

"Yeah, well, you're staying with me until your doctors say otherwise." She held up my set of keys, the small keychain of a beaker with the word "SCIENCE" in bright letters beneath it catching the sunlight. "Now come on. Janice is worried about you."

Said niece was practically bouncing on the couch, waiting for us to walk in. 

"Uncle Cecil! Can I sign your cast??" With eyes bright and the tone of a child blissfully unaware of the ramifications of the situation they're in, she ran up to me with colored pens already in hand awaiting my response.

"Janice, give your Uncle a minute."

"It's fine, Steve. Sure you can, Janice."

She drew a scenic picture of a tree, two tall figures holding hands with a smaller figure between them. It was labeled: Uncle Cecil, Janice (with the 'I' dotted with a heart), and Tío Carlos.

My heart lurched and spasmed painfully in my chest. Below that was a little note in clumsy handwriting. _Feel better soon,_ _sunshine!_

I thought of the last few times Carlos and I had spent the day with Janice, and the song that when she begged, he always sang in Spanish as she sang along in English.

**Eres mi sol, mi único sol** | **You are my sunshine, my only sunshine**  
---|---  
**Me haces feliz cuando los cielos están gris** | **You make me happy when skies are grey**  
**Nunca sabrás, mi amor, cuanto te amo** | **You'll never know, dear, how much I love you**  
**Por favor no te lleves mi sol** | **Please don't take my sunshine away**  
  
I snapped a photo of her drawing and sent it to Carlos.  
_Staying with Abby for the next few days - look what Janice drew!_  
_I love you. I miss you._

His response of "Aww" a few hours later did nothing to ease the bittersweet pain in my chest.

It was fine. The rest of the message was probably just cut off.

Everything was fine.

Everything was still fine when that was followed with:  
 _Be nice to Steve - he's really not a bad guy (and he makes Abby happy) : )_

After Janice had gone to bed I tried his number, wanting to hear his voice, but the call wouldn't go through.  
And so the next best thing would have to do.

**Dear Cecil Palmer:**

**I've got to tell you, life without you has been rough, and I miss talking about science and other stuff.**

**I love this town, but each day's another fight. If I stop drinking to forget, then everything might be alright.**  
**I'll take your advice. I'll try to be more nice. I'll turn it around, wait and see.**  
**'Cause all that it takes is a little reinvention. It's easy to change if you give it your attention.**

 **All you gotta do is just believe you can be ~~with~~ who you want to be.  
** **Sincerely, Me**

* * *

The walk from the radio station to Abby's house took me past the dog park. It's high obsidian walls were mocking in their stony disinterest. The gate, locked as it ever was and ever would be, rattled as I tugged on the handle. There had to be a way to get in. I just needed-  
But that didn't matter, did it?

Slumping down at the entrance, I pulled out the notebook that I'd been writing in for the past six months and started flipping through the past. 

**No one in this town sees because you're a voice on the radio.**

More pages, further into the past.

**"There's nowhere else I'd rather be,"**

The urge to write strikes, and of course I don't have any of my municipally approved writing utensils, but that's only a moment's inconvenience. After all, a blood scout and reporter is always prepared.

I take one look at the words once written and start tearing pages out, letting them fly away on the breeze. As the last page goes over the wall, I feel tears track down my cheeks. The world around me numbs. I reach for my phone with shaking, bloodied hands.

* * *

Carlos, stretching, looked up at the setting sun as it changed the landscape outside the window, as the distant sand dunes seemed to creep ever closer as the shadows grew darker. There was something that caught his eye. A fluttering swarm of white floating gently over the wall.

Confused and curious, he walked outside to see what exactly it was. A piece of paper landed at his feet.

**Dear Cecil Palmer:**

**My mind turns to all the amazing days of the past. I especially like to think of this one day, after dinner and a walk with an amazing man.**

****He looks around and says to me, "There's nowhere else I'd rather be," and I say, "Me too" and we talk and take in the view.**  
******We just talk and take in the view. All we see is sky for forever.** ** ****We let the world pass by for forever, and it feels like we could go on for forever.** **

****Of all the amazing days of the past, I think my favorites are the ones with you.  
**** ****Sincerely, Me** **

He smiled as he finished reading, remembering back to that night at the Arby's, still curious about the "why" of it all. He caught another paper.

**Dear Cecil Palmer:**

**I've got to tell you, life without you has been rough, and I miss talking about science and other stuff.**

The page was torn from his hands by a strong blast of wind, and the smile began to slip away from his face. He was less curious now and more concerned. Grabbing another page, this one seemingly newer as parts of the words were different colors where the ink hadn't quite dried. Most of it was a reddish-brown but the last two lines were still a bright red, messy and smudged.

**Dear Cecil Palmer:**

**Turns out it wasn't an amazing day after all. This isn't going to be an amazing week or an amazing year, because why would it be?** **I know, because there's a part of me missing. There's a part of me that is apart from me...**

 **Maybe if I could just talk to you. If you could hear what I'm trying to say. Maybe nothing would be different at all... I wish that everything was different.  
** **I wish that I was wholly a part of something. I wish that anything I said mattered, to anyone... would anybody even notice if I disappeared tomorrow?**

 **Only time will tell  
** **Sincerely, Me**

His phone vibrated in his pocket.

 _My dearest Carlos_  
_I need you to know I love you_  
_And that I'm sorry_  
_Sincerely, Me_

He called Cecil, even as the facts before him fell into place.

_You've reached the voicemail of Cecil Gershwin Palmer. That might seem like an easy thing to do-_

Cutting the voicemail off, he tried another number.

_Hello?_

"Abby-! Thank the stars! Where's Cecil?"

_He's just headed home from work. Wh-_

"Please, you have to find him. Call anyone you know. So-something's happened, I think, and he's hurt or, or- **worse**. ¡Dios mío! I don't know-!"

_No... I-I'm on it. I call you if we find him._

With the dial tone buzzing in his ear and then echoing through his head, Carlos started running across the cooling desert sand wishing desperately to go back to the place where he once belonged and would, if given the chance, belong again. His head tilted slightly to the left, and then-

He was no longer in the desert.

* * *

**One Week Later**

I woke up before the sun, slightly confused as to where I was before realizing that I was in my bed. And that Carlos was wrapped around me.

Mentally, I started another letter.

**Dear Cecil Palmer:**

**Today's going to be a good day and here's why. Because today, no matter what else, today at least... you're you.  
No hiding, no lying. Just... You. And that's... that's enough.**

**Author's Note:**

> At the time of finishing this, I still haven't seen/listened to Dear Evan Hansen [high five!]  
> I have, however, read all of the letters and pulled lyrics from "For Forever" and "Sincerely, Me", so only half-points for me.
> 
> Statistically speaking, and if I could've used "%" in the tags, this fic is 97% Hurt/3% Comfort because 67 words at the end of an ~2000 word story does not make this okay.
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed this or, at the very least, that you didn't hate it.  
> Much love,  
> Live Más!


End file.
